ASHA: Minutes of meeting (18th Feb)

[Subramanya Sastry <sastry@cs.wisc.edu>]

Attendees: Charu, Kamal, Navin, Param, Subbu, Venki, Vineeta, Vishal, Vinod

SECC
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Navin has been in touch with the University people about getting Asha
registered with the SECC campaign.  At this point, he has found out that
we need to contact the "International Services Group", an umbrella orgn.
that deals with international groups.  He'll be contacting them and sending
them an application.  [ If this comes through, it will ensure that there is
a steady flow of funds to projects. - Subbu ]

T-shirt
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Decisions were made about:
 - the dates for getting the design ready,
 - the dates for getting the first newsletter out,
 - organizing a design contest, and the dates for the same,
 - the dates for getting the T-shirts ready.

o Vineeta had more quotes for T-shirts, but it was not clear why the quotes
   were so varied.  We now plan to look at some samples from each of the
   T-shirt manufacturers (is manufacturer the right word?).  This will proceed
   in parallel with getting a design ready.
o We would like to order about 200 T-shirts for our local chapter.  Based
   on responses from other Asha chapters, more can be ordered.
o The Asha '99 conference is between 29th-31st of May.  It was decided to try
   and get the T-shirts ready by then so that we can take samples there for
   other chapters to look and send in their orders.  Since about 3 weeks are
   required to get the T-shirt ready (after placing the order), the design has
   to be ready by the end of April.
o The following decisions were made about getting T-shirt designs.
  - Organize a T-shirt design contest.  In the newsletter that will go out,
     the contest would be announced.  There would be 2 categories for the
     contest.  Under-12 and over-12.  There will be prizes for each category
     and some honorary mentions.  The newsletter is expected to be ready by
     the 1st of March.  So, it was decided to set April 1st as the deadline
     to receive the designs.  So, the top priority for now is to get the
     newsletter out with an announcement for the contest.  We'll also try and
     publicize the contest on some other mailing lists (ISA, IGSA?).
  - A bunch of us would also get together at some place and try and come up
     with a design of our own.  This, and the designs by the St.Louis chapter
     would serve as backups for us.
  - Once the designs are in, the best of the lot will be picked for the new
     T-shirt.  This should be done by April 15th.
  - There was discussion about coupling the announcement of prizes with a
     social event.  But, no decisions could be made at this meeting.  This
     is subject for future discussion.